


Sick River

by betawho



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1201810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/pseuds/betawho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River was always the strong one, but what would the others do if she got sick?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

River took aim, wavered, her eyes rolled up and she passed out, falling over backward.

"River!" Rory just managed to catch her. He held her up, his hand went to her neck. "She's burning up!"

The aliens didn't stop firing at them, but with River no longer giving them covering fire, the bad guys were getting bold, advancing out from behind the barrels and bales that littered the smuggler's ship cluttered hallways.

They all ducked back behind the gold statue of "Freedom" which they had traced to this ship from the planet Kantaro, where it had been stolen. The smugglers were unwilling to risk melting the precious metal, which was the only thing keeping them safe at the moment.

"River?" Amy patted her cheeks with concern, giving her a harder smack when she didn't respond. Rory frowned at her, she frowned back. River wouldn't want to be unconscious if there was any alternative.

"Quick!" the Doctor said. "Take River, run that way, keep your eyes closed!" He pointed down the tall corridor toward the crammed hold where they'd materialized the Tardis.

"Run with our eyes closed?" Rory protested, River dragging heavy against his side. His daughter was a substantial woman.

"Come on," Amy grabbed River's other arm and slung it over her shoulder, they took off, River hot and limp between them. They squinted their eyes almost closed.

Amy looked back to see what the Doctor was doing, just in time to see him smash open a safety hatch and pull a lever. Fire suppression foam instantly filled the hallway, jetting from invisible ports in the walls. They slammed their eyes closed against the spray and felt the foam expanding all around them, starting to solidify.

They ran, pushing their way through, like running under water.

The Doctor passed them, creating a wake. From the sound of it, he soniced open the emergency bulkhead at the end of the hall, causing a "Whoosh," and a sucking draw on the foam, that slurped them out the last few feet.

They emerged in the hold, standing in a pile of half-solidified foam, and dripping chunks of bubbles. River's hair looked like a huge wad of cotton candy.

The Doctor, trailing bubbles, ran and slid to a stop in front of the Tardis, slamming against the doors. He tried to snap them open but his fingers were too slippery. He fumbled for the key he wore on a chain around his neck.

An energy bolt streaked out of the wall of foam behind them, setting fire to the dry scarecrow figure of some primitive god. Foam shot from the overhead jets. Muffled alien shouts sounded behind them.

Rory and Amy ran to the Tardis. Rory slipped and cracked his knee against the floor, almost pulling Amy and River down on top of him. The Doctor fumbled the key into the lock and pushed the doors open.

Showing an unusual strength, he whirled, scooped River up in both arms and carrying her, ran into the Tardis.

Amy yanked Rory up and shoved him after them.

They stumbled into the Tardis and slammed the door on the rain of growing foam outside. The Doctor was already halfway up the inner staircase. "Medbay!" he yelled at them, a frantic note in his voice.

Amy saw the panicked look he was giving River and felt her heart jolt. She looked at Rory, he looked back and they pelted up the stairs.

They skidded to a halt in the sickbay door to see a foamy Doctor laying a foamy River on the medbay diagnostic bed. His hands were moving in a blur, calling up equipment and programs faster than their eyes could follow.

River's skin was beet red.

Rory's eyes went large, but he knew his way around in here. He'd made a point of it. He ran over, swept his hands under the sterilizer, leaving a razor precise line where the foam stopped and his clean hands began, and ran to wrestle River out of her foamy clothes.

The minute Amy pulled on her gunbelt, trying to remove it, River reacted.

Silent as death she fought them. Chops, kicks, a hand-wringing armwrestling grip that Rory would remember for a long time as she practically threw him over the bed.

Amy yelled. "River! River, it's us! You're sick! We're trying to help!" She managed to toss River's gun away before River could grab it, but received a sharp shove in the solarplexus that left her stunned and gasping to breathe.

The Doctor fought her silently, trying to pin her shoulders down, keep her from leaping off the bed, he turned a hip and grunted as she kicked him hard enough to send him spinning.

Rory threw himself across her, using his weight to hold her down. "River! It's us!" he yelled. He managed to duck his head just before she could get a grip on it. The twisting motion her hands made would have been fatal. He jerked back, stumbling away.

River jackknifed up and got one knee under her on the bed, ready to spring away. Amy stepped forward and threw a punch, putting her whole body behind it. It connected with River's jaw with a sound like a concrete sack hitting wet cement.

River toppled over backward, half sliding off the bed. The Doctor caught her, her hair spilling over his arm. He slid her back up onto the bed. "Good job, Pond," he said.

Amy sucked in a breath, she cradled her reddened hand. "Yeah," she said painfully. "She's got a head like a rock!"

"Runs in the family," the Doctor gave her a weak smile, his eyes flicking back to River. "See to that hand, Rory."

While Rory pulled Amy over to the other bed and ran to get the bone scanner, the Doctor carefully positioned River and attached electrodes to the sides of her throat and upper chest.

River had been unconscious the entire time.

"Why didn't _you_ try to wake her up?" Amy asked, then hissed as Rory applied a device to her hand.

"Sorry," he muttered.

The Doctor kept one hand on the side of River's throat, more for the contact, Amy thought, than to check her pulse.

"She had reverted to her self-defense programming. I didn't dare let her hear my voice," he said.

Rory's head snapped up. "Does that happen often?"

The Doctor shook his head impatiently, his quiff whipping, as he glared at the readouts on the screen beside him. "She has conscious control over it. But whatever this is has ripped that from her."

He growled at whatever was showing on the screens and flung the sensors away. He leaned over and placed a hand on either side of her throat, he palpated the red, swollen flesh there with long, sensitive fingers, looking more like a doctor at that moment than Amy had ever seen him.

Rory looked on in concern, still mending Amy's broken knuckle. "What is it?" he said. He realized what the Doctor was doing.

The Doctor shook his head, then leaned forward and laid his forehead on River's. He held very still for a moment, and Amy shivered as a ghostly feeling rippled through the air.

The Doctor pulled back. "She's too far in," he muttered, not quite under his breath.

"Doctor?" Amy said with that pleading but stern voice that said mayhem would ensue if he didn't start unpacking a little.

He looked back, his fingers still working on River's throat and under her jaw. "Her lymph nodes are swollen. Her temperature is elevated, even more than usual. And her skin is dry and papery.

"What does that say to you, Rory?"

"Poison," Rory said flatly.

The Doctor whirled and grabbed a small device from the tray of instruments behind him. It had a flat, square tongue of glass on the end and he quickly lifted one of River's hands, pricked the end of her finger with the small pick on the end of the device.

He pulled out the glass tongue and Amy realized it was a slide. He tapped it into a device and shoved his eyes down over the covered viewfinder.

River started spazming. Rory and Amy yelled and jumped forward to grab her. They tried to hold her shoulders down. She was flopping like a landed fish, yet still somehow rigid. Rory tried to make sure she didn't swallow her tongue. Amy tried to keep her on the table.

The Doctor flailed to grab her feet, earning a kick in the jaw for his efforts.

Abruptly she stopped and fell still. Everyone panted, watching to see if it would happen again.

But she remained still as death, the flushed redness of her skin paled and drained away, leaving her looking white and waxy. She was unnaturally stiff.

"River?" Amy said in a quiet voice that sounded very much like it was edging toward scream.

"Oh, no. No, no, no," the Doctor said, pushing his way to her head, knocking Rory out of his way, he grabbed her head and lifted it up, looking as if he was trying to force his very thoughts into her mind. "You promised not to do this, you made _me_ promise, so that means you promised too!"

She started to pant. He breathed out a sigh of relief, wilting. She started breathing harder, harder, deeper, faster, gasping, obviously not getting any air.

"Rory!" the Doctor scrambled under the bed and slammed a pressure cuff in Rory's hand, he waved at River's other arm, even as he wrapped a second cuff around her bicep nearest to him. "Oxygen cuff!" he yelled when he saw Rory's confused gaze. Rory nodded and wrapped it around River's other arm, the straps ripping with the sound of velcro.

The Doctor's fingers danced over his cuff then darted over and danced over Rory's. Both cuffs inflated like miniature water wings, and started pulsating in time, like artificial lungs.

The Doctor swiped a finger over the ebony headboard and it lit up with colorful signs and symbols and monitoring statistics, the round Gallifreyan writing flowing down it in a scrolling cascade.

"Rory, set up a saline drip," the Doctor ordered as he did incomprehensible things with the controls. "Us the osmotic cuff."

Rory nodded and darted to the other side of the sickbay.

"What can I do?" Amy asked, staring at her daughter's still, waxy face.

"Just stand ready, Amy." The Doctor gave her a quick and not very encouraging smile.

Rory came back and brushed by her. Amy stepped back and picked up River's clothes, her battledress and boots had been scattered in the earlier attack. She quickly folded them and set them on the end of the other bed.

Her heart beat like a lead balloon in her chest, each beat hard and bruising. She stared at her daughter, still clad in a racy lace bra and short slip. But what she saw was the tiny swaddled baby who'd cried as she was taken from her. She refused to let the tears that threatened flow. She gritted her teeth and charged up her mad. Anger had always helped her whenever things wheeled out of her control.

She would _not_ lose her baby again.

The Doctor went back to his blood slide while Rory set up the saline drip.

The Doctor looked for a long time, longer than it seemed for him to make up his mind. He pulled back and wiped a hand down his face, pulling the skin tight. He turned and stared at River in the bed. She was still breathing hard, gasping, but no longer as pale.

It was the Doctor who was pale now.

"What?" Amy demanded. Totally refusing to accept that look on his face. "What is it?"

The Doctor got up and walked to the side of River's bed. She looked like a doll laying there. A lifesize figurine. He picked up one fist, he smiled a watery smile, even unconscious his wife would bunch her fists and fight.

He raised her arm. Her whole arm came up, stiff, like rigor mortis. Not bending at the elbow, almost creaking. He kissed her fist and set her arm back down.

"What is it, Doctor?" Rory said in his intense, worried voice.

The Doctor pulled up a screen on the headboard, eclipsing the icons already there. He zeroed in on an image of River's lungs. Then focused in, and in, and in, until the screen showed what looked like a field of gray grass, then zoomed in further, until the waving grass looked the size of cables. Like a closeup of hair follicles.

"What is that?" Amy asked.

"Cilia," Rory answered distractedly. He stared at the image and frowned. Tiny, thread thin filaments were growing up the outside of the cables, branching out like mold spores, connecting in a web, tangling around the cilia, smothering it, stopping the natural waving motion.

"Doctor?" Rory asked, a scared look on his face.

"It's Pliascene poisoning," the Doctor said, rubbing a hand over his mouth, his face pale.

"And that is?" Rory prompted.

"Celluloid fibers that bond with muscle fibers and the cilia of the lungs, like plastic. The lymphatic system can filter them out, but they attack too quickly, overwhelming the systems, until..."

"Until?" Amy demanded. "Until what?"

"Until they completely encase and supplant the normal tissues. Until she becomes a fiberglass cast of herself," he finished.

Rory stared, mouth open. He shut it. "Isn't there something we can do? Give her a transfusion, filter them out of the blood."

"They're not just in her blood. We keep her blood stockpiled here just in case, but even that wouldn't be enough, we..."

He got a blank look on his face.

Amy knew that look. Her heart beat faster.

"We..? We what?!" she demanded.

He looked at her. "Oh, she's not going to like this..."

–

They stuffed her back into the spacesuit she'd worn as a child. Amy tenderly pulled her curly hair back in a ponytail, securing it with a scrunchie, and tucked it back into the helmet of the suit.

The Doctor and Rory hooked up all the biological connections. Amy deliberately didn't look, just the thought made her wince.

They all worked in grim silence. Each doing their part.

They sealed up the suit. The Doctor activated the controls.

And the spacesuit sat up. Stood up. And started walking.

—

* * *

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	2. Chapter 2

River woke to find herself trapped behind the faceplate of a spacesuit.

Her heart kicked in terror. Her limbs were being controlled, walking, without her will. Her muscles screamed in agony as they flexed, endless, repetitive, the familiar burn of torturous training and conditioning.

The Doctor’s face appeared before her, wavery and distorted.

“No! _Run!_ ” she screamed, even as the spacesuit arms raised toward him. “ _It will kill you!_ ”

She immediately started trying to dump the weapons power systems, reroute the energy, retarget, anything. She started tearing at the suit, hearts pounding, mind screaming.

She had to get _OUT!_

—

“No!River! River, listen to me!” The Doctor held his hands out to her, hearing the monitors whine as her vital signs spiked. She thrashed and tore at the suit, a suit she’d forced her way out of as a child. Even weakened it would be no match for an adult River.

She tore at the glove, it ripped loose, tearing at the seam, oxygen hissed out.

“River,no!” He reached forward and grabbed the sleeve, clamping it around her wrist, trapping the air.

She struggled. “NO! Run, my love!”

Her face was wild, sweating, her hair straggling in her eyes. She wasn’t seeing him, trapped in her own hell.

“River, River, listen to me!” He grabbed her other shoulder, forcing her to face him, keeping a hand tight around her wrist.

“It’s not the same suit!” he yelled, trying to get her to hear. “You’re in the Tardis! You’re safe!”

She stared at him, blue-green eyes beautiful even in her terror.

“There’s no weapons systems,” he said, keeping his voice firm, even though his hearts were beating furiously. “There’s no remote control. No one can control you. Only life support and oxygen and the servos. You’re in control. Try to move,” he encouraged, trapping her terrified eyes with his.

“You’re in control,” he said softly when she stilled. “Look around, you’re in the Tardis, you’re safe.”

She looked around. The view was distorted through the helmet, like looking through water. She squashed down that memory.

The Doctor stood before her, leaning toward her with that hopeful look on his face, his adorable delicate eyebrows raised, that wonderful, ridiculous bow tie around his neck, and looking like he hadn’t shaved in days.

She frowned. That wasn’t like him. She looked around. She was in the Tardis sick bay. Amy and Rory lay sleeping together on the bed in the isolation ward, behind the window that connected this room to the other.

She hurt. She ached. Every fiber of her body screamed in pain.

She started walking again. She screamed, and fought. It wasn’t her, the suit was moving her. She struggled and pushed, pulling, struggling to control her own limbs.

“River! RIVER!” the Doctor was dancing backward in front of her, half crouched over to see into her visor. “It’s okay! It’s the Tardis. We have to keep you walking. It’s only the Tardis. She’s controlling the servos.

“River, please...” she looked up to find tears in his eyes, begging her. When he saw her focusing on him he widened them, nodding, trying to smile.

“We have to keep you walking,” he explained rapidly. “It’s only the Tardis controlling the servos, monitoring your vitals. You can trust the Tardis. She’d never hurt you. You know you’re her favorite.”

River’s mind swam, the pain, the memories, she tried to ignore them, tried to ignore the watery view, tried to ignore the holes in her memory where the dark things lived.

She wavered in and out, barely keeping hold, but not daring to let go of consciousness. She had no control over her body. The rasp of the ventilators as she breathed echoed in her ears, scraping panic along her nerves.

She was back in that lake, waiting. Unable to move. The weight of the water pressing her down. The weight of fate crushing her. Knowing she would be forced to walk up out of the depths and murder the man she loved.

Her heart monitors shrilled, but she didn’t hear them. Pain lashed every nerve. Her heart pounded, despair drowned her in blackness. Just a tool. Born and bred to kill. No sweet love. No parents. Just death.

Blackness coated her vision, her hearts slowed. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. The sound of footsteps, so far away.

“ _River!_ ” the sound faded, a great distance...

—

72 Hours Earlier

The Doctor felt furious satisfaction as he flash fried the first filter pack crammed with the Pliascene filaments filtered out of River’s system.

Amy stared into the sterilizer with him.

“Is that it?” she asked, hopefully.

He looked up at her. “No, that’s just the first. This isn’t going to be quick or easy.”

They turned as the Clomp, Clomp, Clomp of the spacesuit boots started back up again.

Rory stepped back from where he’d clipped a new filter pack to the back of the spacesuit life support systems.

The spacesuit, with River inside, clomped up and down the elongated sickbay. The Tardis had stretched the room to allow more space for walking. She was monitoring and regulating River’s vitals, and adjusting the pace, keeping a delicate balance, enough motion to filter the Pliascene, but not so much that they’d damage her muscles with the strain.

“Why are we doing this again?” Amy asked, hating the image of that spacesuit. The same spacesuit she’d shot, never knowing it was her own daughter inside. She knew, now. And she hated it.

River’s unconscious face showed in the visor, her forehead tilted forward against the glass, her unmanageable curls already pulling loose from their tie and wisping around her face, sticking to her sweaty cheeks.

The respirator hissed every few steps, exhausting built up carbon dioxide.

“We have to keep her moving, Amy,” Rory said, keeping a measuring eye on the suit, and his daughter inside.

“Walking’s the best thing to stimulate the lymphatic system,” he said. ”It pumps the nodes, circulates the fluid so it can filter out more of the filaments.”

He looked at her with a despairing look in his eye. “We have to filter them out faster than they grow, we have to keep her walking.”

Amy walked over and hugged him. Knowing how this hurt him. He was a nurse. And he knew the risks, better than her. And that was his baby in there too.

The spacesuit reached the far wall, pivoted, and started clomping back.

The Doctor clapped, startling them, and rubbed his hands together. “Right, you two. Let’s get a blood sample.”

“What?” Amy asked, startled.

Rory nodded. “If River’s been exposed to this stuff, it’s possible we have too. I’m surprised none of us have come down with it.”

Amy stared back and forth between Rory and the Doctor. The Doctor picked up his slide sampler and inserted a new slide. “You think we’re all infected?”

Rory held out his hand to be pricked. He winced. The Doctor prepared the slide and inserted a new one. “I doubt it,” the Doctor said, turning to Amy. “We’d probably have succumbed first, River’s tough. And we haven’t been anywhere where we could pick up Pliascene poisoning.”

“But...” Amy’s eyes darted to the spacesuit that was clomping past them.

He shrugged with a wry twist to his mouth. “Who knows where River’s been. Best to be sure.”

Amy nodded and winced as the device jabbed her finger.

The Doctor and Rory consulted over the slides, the Doctor showing him what to look for, how to call up the catalog of diseases, though he seemed to have it all in his head.

Finally with a sigh, Rory leaned back and pulled the Doctor’s slide out of the machine. “You’ve got the weirdest blood,” he said. “But we all seem to be clean.”

Amy felt a loosening of tension she didn’t even know she had.

The spacesuit reached the wall and turned again, clomping back.

Amy gritted her teeth. This was going to be hard.

—

Rory made a plate of sandwiches in the kitchen. The Tardis had been considerate and moved the kitchen closer to the sickbay. He kept one ear on the clomp, clomp, clomp of the spacesuit boots.

His hands started to tremble. The bread quivered in his grasp, the mayonnaise jittered off of the knife. He dropped them and put his hands over his face. He could feel the heat of his tears trickle down onto his fingers. His shoulders shuddered, but he stayed quiet. He didn’t want Amy to see him like this.

He felt a hand on his back, and jerked upright. He turned to see the Doctor behind him. The Time Lord’s eyes were dark, and sunk deep, looking very old.

He gathered Rory in, wrapping hard arms around him. For once Rory didn’t dismiss him, didn’t second guess.

He held onto the older man. Arms tight and shaking. Rory’d never been easy with River, never knew what to say to her, never understood the wild crazy warrior woman who was his daughter. Always felt a bit intimidated.

But that was his baby in there. The tiny little human bean who’d looked up at him with such wide and trusting eyes. The one who’d had the good sense to mock the Doctor’s bow tie. He snorted an impossible laugh at that. Then broke down and sobbed.

The Doctor just held him in a grip that could break bones.

 

Rory straightened. “Thanks. I’m okay now.” He looked up. “This is going to work, right?” He knew better than to ask. He’d seen how fast those filaments were growing, he knew how fast the lymphatic system worked.

“It’s the best chance we have,” the Doctor said, letting him go.

Rory saw those dark eyes again. Sometimes he forgot how old the Doctor was. But it was there now. Every year, every century, every loved one lost.

Sometimes there was nothing to do but endure.

“So,” Rory said, picking up the knife with a shaking hand, “pickles or tomato?”

—

The Doctor spun the Tardis off into the vortex. He’d not had time to move them in the first flush of the crisis, but he didn’t want the Tardis anywhere where anyone could attack, or draw her attention away from her primary function right now.

He could feel the Tardis’s attention fully riveted on River. The flight was being controlled from the automatic systems. The Tardis was on vigil with the rest of them. Carefully lifting and placing every foot, every swing of the arms, every shift of body mass, calculated for maximum filtering and minimum damage.

She hovered, meticulous. The Doctor wouldn’t have it any other way.

He leaned on the console. He wasn’t despairing. He’d learned the futility of that. And he clung tightly to the knowledge that he knew when River died. And it wasn’t here.

Time could be rewritten, but damned if he’d let it be _this_ time.

—

Amy was asleep. She’d fought it, staying awake and watching with the rest of them as long as she could. But Amy wasn’t used to waiting. Her head nodded, and she almost fell out of her chair. The Doctor caught her.

He stood up, lifting her with him, he looked at Rory. Rory nodded. “Put her to bed. I’ll watch.”

The Doctor swung Amy up into his arms, her long red hair flopping over his arm. “I’ll be right back.”

Rory looked him up and down. The man was haggard. He’d been looking up different ways to kill the Pliascene, different ways, faster ways to filter them out, tinkering with adaptations, and basically wearing himself out in an attempt to not hear the clomp, clomp, clomp of boots behind him.

His shoulders were so tense Rory expected to hear him scream at any moment.

“Take some time. Get some sleep.”

The Doctor gave him a “really?” look from under dark brows (funny how he could do dark brows when he didn’t have any.) “Then take a bath," Rory said. "Clean up. Sit in hot water for five minutes.” He held up a finger when the Doctor looked to protest. “Nurse’s orders. You’re no use if you’re about to snap in two. Or snap at me,” he said, when the Doctor glowered and opened his mouth.

The Doctor closed his mouth. He nodded and carried Amy out of the sickbay, ignoring the fact that he passed right behind the plodding astronaut suit.

Rory was good at waiting. He had lots of experience at it.

He sat back in his chair and glanced over the readouts above the med-bed. He’d gotten to where he could read some of it.

He watched the spacesuit clomp up and down, the occasional hiss of exhaust punctuating the quiet. Once the suit stopped moving and he jumped up and ran to unclip the full filter pack at the back and replace it with a fresh one. Checking the oxygen gauge while he was at it.

The suit was feeding her oxygen directly into her blood, but as the Doctor had explained, a pure oxygen environment would help kill the filaments in the lungs faster.

As soon as he stepped back the suit started walking again.

Clomp, clomp, clomp.

He disintegrated the filter pack and returned to his chair, waiting for his next task.

He looked up at the clock he’d hung over the sickbay door. (The Tardis, strangely, seemed largely devoid of clocks.)

As he expected, the Doctor must have fallen asleep in the bath. He patted the wall behind him, and felt a low, conspiratorial hum.

Yeah, he might not know what to do for the Time Lord. But best to leave the waiting to the one suited for it.

He wished he could push River’s hair back. It looked uncomfortable sticking to her cheeks that way. But at least she didn’t look so pale now. A bit flushed actually, but that was a good thing, he decided. Proved she was getting enough oxygen to her blood.

He worried that all the walking would strain her muscles. She’d already been walking for hours. But there was no help for it, it was either walk or die.

He took comfort from the fact that this wasn’t just River, and it wasn’t just his baby. This was Mels. And Mels had always been a champion pacer.

He grinned, remembering his childhood friend. For all her insouciance about most things. Mels could be a champion pacer and worrier.

He’d never realized at the time that it was something his daughter got from him.

And if they got through this, he was going to hug his daughter more often.

It didn’t matter that River was intimidating, or that Mels knew far too much about how pathetic her father was.

When they got through this, _if_ they got through this... He shut his mind down.

He’d had 2,000 years to learn the futility of worrying.

And here was another woman of his family, trapped in a box that held death a breath away.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

He could do this.

—

Three Days.

Amy and Rory had taken to sleeping in the isolation ward. It let them keep an eye on River, without having to hear the nerve wracking Clomp, Clomp, Clomp of the boots.

The Doctor hadn’t slept since that first day. After giving Rory a dirty look he’d ensconced himself in the sickbay and hadn’t left. His hair was standing on end from running his fingers through it, and he hadn’t shaved in days. His tweed was looking ratty, and he had more lines on his face than Rory had ever seen before.

What he wouldn’t give to see that goofy grin again.

But River was his _wife_.

Rory hugged Amy closer on the isolation bed. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was high enough to let them see out the window.

He spooned around her and watched his son-in-law watch his wife.

He’d never really thought about what it meant to the Doctor to have a wife. Rory had known he wanted Amy for his wife since he was eight years old. But the Doctor, the Doctor had been a loner for most of his life, his very long life.

Oh, Amy had told him about the long line of pretty girls that had apparently traveled with the Doctor before. Rory had gotten the Doctor drunk one night after he’d married River (after the fool had come back for Christmas after two years) and got him talking about the other girls.

The man was full of stories, and even more voluble drunk. (Who’d have guessed he’d have such a soft head for alcohol?) But it was quickly apparent that he’d never been involved with those other Companions. They were all great friends. And there were a few embarrassing stories. [Mostly of accidentally walking into the wrong bathroom at the wrong time. Although apparently one of them didn’t have a tribal taboo against nudity and had to be taught that “civilized” people did not simply take all their clothes off when it was hot. Except for the boots apparently. The Doctor had been _very_ drunk.])

But, it had illuminated something that Rory hadn’t really realized. Having spent so long looking at the Doctor through jealous eyes, he simply hadn’t realized how momentous it was that the Doctor would actually take a wife.

And for it to be _his_ daughter. Who drove the Time Lord completely up the wall...

Well, Rory could understand that. Amy drove him completely up the wall too.

He hugged her tighter.

His eyes never left the figure of the Time Lord, sitting hunched forward on a folding chair, his eyes never leaving the astronaut suit that trolled up and down the sickbay.

A suit, Rory realized, that had tried to kill him.

And yet, there was an almost visible yearning emanating from him to the suit. An energy that permeated even these medical walls.

The alarms whined.

The Doctor shot up.

—

Today

“ _River!_ ”

The Doctor grabbed the suit as it toppled forward. He kept one hand clamped around the rip at her wrist, holding the air in.

The med bed monitor went dark.

Rory and Amy sped around the corner from the isolation ward, faces stark.

—

A song floated in the dark. A lullaby.

—

“River?” it was a little boy’s voice, lost, afraid. He cradled the suit in his lap, patting the faceplate with one hand, as if he was patting her cheek.

Amy and Rory hovered, falling to their knees.

“ _RIVER!_ ” He shook her, jarring her head in the helmet.

—

The lullaby turned to jazz.

—

River blinked open her eyes. “Sweetie?”

—

They all collapsed beside her. Amy and Rory had tears in their eyes. They all babbled at once, she couldn’t hear what they were saying. What was she doing in a spacesuit?

She felt like shit.

The Doctor hugged her hard, rocking. Then slammed open her faceplate, grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

Oh, that was nice!

She tried to wrap her arm around his back, but it stung like the devil. She could barely move. Her lips were fine though. Better than fine.

The Doctor pulled back. She smiled up at him.

“Rory, hand me that duct tape.”

Her euphoria landed with a thud.

Typical.

Oh well, she’d teach him better manners later.

They were all talking at once again. She ignored them. She tried to sit up and couldn’t. Every muscle felt like it had been through a meat grinder. She turned her nose down and sniffed. She stank!

She hated spacesuits.

She turned back to see the Doctor winding a roll of duct tape around her wrist, sealing a gap in the suit.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Can you sit up?” Rory asked, sliding an arm behind her. She nodded, but he had to do most of the work.

“Are you okay, River?” Amy asked worriedly.

“Yes, why? What’s the matter? Why am I in a spacesuit?” River looked down, she felt like the Staypuft Marshmallow man.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” the Doctor asked, patting the last end of the duct tape down and throwing the roll over his shoulder onto the medbed.

She stared around at the sickbay. Her brows furrowed. “We were pinned down, shooting.” Her head jerked up and she stared at him. “Freedom’s a fake.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Well if you want to get philosophical...”

“No,” River waved a hand impatiently, she struggled to rise to her feet. Rory and the Doctor helped her.

“The statue. It’s a fake.”

They all stared at her like she’d just uttered a total non-sequitur. She frowned at them. “It’s not real gold,” she clarified.

“What does _that_ matter?!” Amy suddenly exploded, throwing her hands in the air, glaring at her. “Where have you been that you could pick up Pliascene poisoning?” she demanded.

River carefully lowered herself against the edge of the biobed. “What? Nowhere.” She looked down. “Is that why I’m in a spacesuit?”

“We had to filter the filaments out of your system,” the Doctor said, looking apologetic.

She nodded. She thought, and looked down at the glove that was held on with duct tape.

“The Archeologists' Curse,” she said.

“Huh?” Amy was looking a bit frazzled.

River looked up. “Poisons. Diseases. Hazards of the trade.” She looked around at them, they were looking at her blankly.

“The statue, Freedom. It’s not really a gold statue. It’s just gold leaf. The actual statue is made of jet. Jet is more valuable on Kantaro.”

“River, is now really the time for a lecture?” Amy said, running her fingers through her hair in annoyance.

“Yes,” River said. Really, they all looked even worse than she felt. “The actual statue is made of polished jet, immensely valuable. The monks must have covered it with gold leaf to hide it from invaders. Like covering a Golden Buddha with clay. Gold’s fairly common there.”

“But just in case, they put a curse on it,” the Doctor followed, nodding. His eyes never leaving her, still gauging, absorbing her as if he couldn’t get enough. She felt her blood sing a little at that. Really, a girl could get used to that sort of thing.

“Yes, they must have imbued the gold with Pliascene filaments.” She shrugged. “I flicked off a piece of the gold leaf. Must have got some under my nails.”

Amy’s hands dropped and she stared openmouthed. “You got some _under your NAILS!_ ” she almost screamed.

Rory started laughing.

—

It only took two days for River to fully recover. Most of that time was spent with the others in the Tardis pool, drinking milk shakes. The water provided buoyancy to her abused muscles. The shakes were imbued with Gallifreyan nanotech protein to rebuild the muscle fibers.

Not that River was complaining. Nightly massages, and a constant subliminal approval soundtrack from the Tardis, like a cat rubbing up against her in affection, went a long way toward soothing any pain.

And lots of hugs.

For the first time since they were all children, she found herself getting lots of hugs from Rory, and Amy.

—

“Are you sure you want to do this?” the Doctor asked. They were all gathered in the console room.

Amy was armed with a flamethrower. Rory was holding a brace of nanobot grenades, specifically designed by the Doctor to eat and disintegrate the gold leaf and filaments. All he had to do was throw them at the statue.

“Oh, yes, Sweetie. After all, we promised the Kantarans we’d recover their statue.”

She smirked at him and patted his cheek. She gave his worried mouth a little smooch.

“Besides,” she flirted her eyes at him and turned, she swaggered towards the door, “I’m not _about_ to be beaten by a piece of costume jewelry.”

THE END

—

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